Page 8 - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, November 16, 1989 Author releases memory BY MARK SWARTZ Worst of the bunch I can hear a radio now from the next room, or maybe from two rooms over. A woman is singing. It is not Marlene Dietrich. My wife and I first became acquainted in Paris, after I was released from D.P. camp.... She would come to my room and listen to a record of Mar- kne Dietrich that I had discovered in a box of German record albums in a used backstore. Did you catch that? Author Jerome Badanes, in the guise of his hero Leon Solomon, just pulled a fast one on you. Marlene Dietrich was what brought on the recollection of, his wife. But that woman singing down the hall, she wasn't even Mar- lene Dietrich, right? So where does le get off talking about his wife? Qut of which ripple in the grey mat- ter did that memory crawl? Memory, the keystone of Badanes' The Final Opus of Leon Solomon (Knopf hardback, $18.95), happens to work that way. Solomon's past life just bubbles out of him in his "memoirs," written from a run-down hotel room in mid- town Manhattan. He goes on, ur- gently, desperately about his hard- ships in Holocaust-stricken Warsaw, about his education, about his sexual exploits, and and religious longing. His ransacking through memo- ries' darkest file cabinets has a pur- pose. Solomon is looking for some- thing. Call it, as the The New York Evil East meets M6tley BY MIKE KUNIAVSKY I can just see the power lunch that spawned this one: "So why have you brought us here, Mr. Rhee?" "Well, I have this great idea for a movie. I want to make a film about karate that's sort of a combination of Rocky, The Green Berets, and The Bad News Bears. It'll have plenty of action, drama and action." "But will it have plenty of slow motion shots of fly- ing spit in the big fight sequence at the end?" "Of course." "And what will the plot be like?" "Well, it'll be about a ragtag band of cardboard char- acters who, as the cream of the crop of American karate champions, will have to fight the evil, faceless Korean national team in a bloody, full-contact bout to win American honor." "Will this film have a moral?" "Not exactly, but it will show how American hon- esty, integrity and hard work will win over even the coldest of Asian hearts. In the end even though our boys will not win the championship they will still be win- ners, having taught the Koreans a lesson about life, love and international harmony." "What will these characters be like?" "The main characters will be a bunch of typical Americans, each of whom is amusing and admirable in his own way. We'll have an auto worker who's down on his luck, an ethnic minority who is stupid but lov- able, a Zen Buddhist nerd who - to the other charac- ters' chagrin - still gets the women, our hero - played by me, Philip Rhee - an intelligent Asian American who holds a dark secret, and a racist asshole cowboy." "But of course these boys won't be able to compete alone, will they? After all, they are social outcasts who, like all true Americans, need strong leadership in order to combat the evil Asians." "Of course! Here is where the other two main card- West in Best of the Best tough, mean coach who holds the same dark secret as the hero - played by me, Philip Rhee - and who is driven to the brink of destroying the team before the light of humanity and the need for plot acceleration cause him to realize his mistake and to perform flaw- lessly during the all-important final combat sequence. He is of course not alone in this endeavor, he needs a spiritual guide for the men in the form of a beautiful, but powerful, female Zen master who remains effemi- nate by wearing tight leotards and short skirts." "Who can we get to play all of these wonderful char- acters?" "I have already researched this extensively. It seems that Eric Roberts - you remember him from all of those art films of the mid-'80s - is short on cash ever since he bought the rights to John Holmes' life story, so he'd be perfect for the character of the auto worker. James Earl Jones would be good as the coach because he hasn't been doing much lately and so he probably needs some quick cash and Sally Kirkland can still fit into a mini, so she'd be good as the beautiful, but powerful, female Zen master. Finally, I can't think of anyone bet- ter suited to playing a racist asshole cowboy than Christopher Penn, but I'm worried because he has gained a lot of weight lately.... "Don't worry about that, we'll put him in loose clothes and use a stunt double for the karate sequences. Just tell me, what are you going to call this?" "I was thinking of Flying Fists from Oregon, The Karate Platoon or The Best of the Best." "I like that last one, it'll give the reviewers some- thing for their headlines and we can use it in a generic guitar-laden theme song. Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I like it. Let's call it The Best of the Best." Note: the opinions expressed in this review are nei- ther held by its author nor, necessarily, the Michigan Daily. THE BEST OF TIHE BEST closes its run at Showcase Cinemas today. c L"ndb"om Jerome Badanes, author of The Final Opus of Leon Solomon, writes well enough to win a Hopwood. In fact, he did pick up one of the elusive little buggers when he attended the University as an undergraduate. Times Book Review does, "Illumination." He is trying to illu- minate some kind of sense in his crazy life. Something to make it less unbearable. Not that it will do him any good, because Leon Solomon is determined not to leave that hotel room alive. He will kill himself at the end of three days in there, and as the book starts we are already well along in Day Two. For Jerome Badanes, as for Leon Solomon, memories are an obses- sion. He began The Opus of Leon Solomon after exploring survivors' memories when he wrote a film documentary on the Holocaust called Image Before My Eyes. His own memories, however, are far removed from the horrors of World War II. Badanes was born in a Jewish neighborhood of Brooklyn and went on to study English here at the Uni- versity, where won a Hopwood for poetry. Currently, he teaches Cre- ative Writing at Sarah Lawrence College and in the urban studies program at Vassar. board characters come in. Our boys will be led by a JEROME BADANES will appear at Hillel tonight for $8, $Sfor students. Tonight's event is being sponsored by the Hillel Foundation and the Jewish Community Center of Washtenaw County. Read Jim Poniewozik Every T~l AkA LITERATURE Continued from page 5 vantes? Because we have all been told that Dickinson is a "great poet"? Because she is consequently taught in almost every survey class on American literature? Is that enough? What makes for good poetry any- way? And who is creating the defini- tions? O.K. So what? When it's your turn, have them say cacarajicara, and where is the Aconcagua and who was Sucre, and where on this planet did Marti die. And please: make them always talk to you in Spanish. -Nicolas Guillen, "Problems of underdevelopment" So what is American literature? If I am not going to accept traditional definitions, what can I propose as an alternative? But even phrasing the questions in this way misses the whole point. There is no such thing as an American literary tradition, but rather a series of such traditions, stretching from Alaska to Chile, from Nova Scotia to Baja California. All of them should be part of any American literary program, many are arguably more important than New England literary culture, and, finally, all are part of what the United States has arrogantly claimed for itself as American literature. Moreover, given that arrogance and its devastating impact on the history of this hemisphere, any American literary program must be structured around the theme of resis- tance. In addition to celebrating the richness of their own respective cul- tures, literature by Chicanos and African Americans, Salvadorans and Asian Americans is a literature of struggle - a conscious attempt to reclaim lost songs and broken histo- ries, forgotten languages and elabo- rate rituals from those powerful his- torical and cultural forces that work to exclude them. The University should work to reclaim and celebrate them as well, rejecting its frequently Eurocentric definition of American literature for one that remembers at what tragic expense that definition has been forged. 4 I "I just wish I had started earlier." Name: Melissa Cosio Status: Senior. Major: ICP - Promotions Position at the Daily: Classified Account Executive "Because the Daily is run entirely by students, you really learn how to be responsible. It's great experience, and it only takes a few hours a week. Besides, it's rewarding to actually see your work in the paper. I think working on the Daily's advertising staff is about the best experience you can have during school to prepare for a business career."